Shiver
by titanicavatar
Summary: After a near-death incident, Peter and Gwen decide never to see each other again. If only.
1. Chapter 1

**If you thought I owned Spider-Man, you have a good sense of humour. To state it more clearly : I don't own Spider-Man. Story's in Gwen's POV, by the way.**

* * *

I walked along the pavement under the drizzling rain, the rim of the umbrella burning hot inside my palm. I held it tight; it was so windy that I thought anytime I could be blown away. I was weak, stumbling, often knocked aside by the rumble of busy pedestrians. Water leaked through the old umbrella and soaked my striped cardigan. I walked a couple of steps more and stumbled again, over a disowned bag that lay drenched and glistening in the middle of the path. I twisted my ankle, my arms flailed towards the sky and a mild squeak escaped my throat as I begun falling flat on the face to the muddy ground. But a strong arm held flew out of thin air and held me back.

The way the arm clutched my waist was much too familiar for me to be mistaken. I felt a swooping sensation inside my body. It put me back to my feet and awkwardly pulled away. Even before I turned I knew the person was standing a few steps behind, waiting for me to turn, to smile.

But alas, I had forgotten how to smile.

I hadn't spoken to him since two months. We barely looked at each other at school. We sat at two different corners. Yet I had to bump into no one but him in the busy, wide roads of the city. And yet he had to be the one to save me. He stared at me, a bit apologetic, a bit befuddled, with a blank, deer-gazing-at-the-headlights sort of look while I rendered him a sheepish glance, the umbrella resting upon my shoulders, fidgeted and rubbed my fingernails together.

"How are you?"

I didn't know whether it was a genuine question or a way to start another uncomfortable conversation, since he had his eyes fixed over the flashy board of the grocery shop beside. My heart sank to my stomach and a lump rose in my throat before I turned my back and trotted some yards ahead to take a cab home. He followed my slow, heavy footsteps. The very realization of him stalking wrenched my heart and an inane surge of anger flustered me. First he didn't want to see me, and now he wouldn't let me go until I answered the bloody shallow question of his? How many ways did he want to churn to suck the life out of me?

"Gwen, wait -"

"What?" I barked, wheeling round, my eyes glaring and bloodshot. The rain went blistering into my neck.

For a while he abstained from whatever he was about to say, then continued in a low dark murmur, "I wanted to talk to you."

He wanted to talk to me. The words stabbed through my chest and rang in my head. Again and again. He wanted to talk to me. "So what?" I wanted to say, but different sounding words tumbled out of my mouth, "Okay, go on."

He looked around to check for anyone within earshot, and then brought his face near to my ear. "I've given up being Spider-Man," he said. With the warm breath that hit my ear, blood rushed to my head and made my temple pound like a funeral drum.

"Peter, why are you telling me this?"

I was not sure what I wanted to hear. Maybe, not being Spider-Man anymore would not make him break the promise he made. Not technically, at least. And we could still be together.

Peter gently nudged me aside towards the door of the grocery shop as people pushed past us and complained about holding up the whole way. I fixed my gaze at a puddle of water while few pedestrians threw me casual yet rude stares. It frightened me. I suddenly noticed how vulnerable I had become.

And the vulnerability came with a reason. Reason? Well, for starters, I felt devastated these days, as if I was standing at the end of the world. I had started to swear a lot. I had created my own dark world, when I would lock the door of my room, switch off the lights and delve into all those murky suicidal thoughts every day. My grades had declined and I could've never cared less to improve upon them. And it all began that day, that very day at the front porch of the church, when I waited in the rain, sobbing. When I watched my brothers and realized the onus had fallen upon me, the eldest. When my mother cried on my shoulders and I fought to hold back my own tears. It all began that day, when I realized I must be as ruthless as the world had been to me.

"I…" he started off, not forgetting that affectionate touch on the cheek whenever my eyes welled up, but I being myself right then, flinched back. For a fraction of a second there was a horrified expression on his face, but then with a painful grimace he withdrew his hand, assuming it was entire his fault from the beginning.

He ushered me into the coffee shop beside the grocery so as to save us from the thunderous patter. Despite the revolt raging inside my head, I closed my dripping umbrella and followed him like that meek member of the herd trailing its leader. The interiors of the coffee parlour hit me with abrupt warmth, standing in stark contrast with the bleak, cold, demented weather outside that so resembled my life.

"Gwen," he tried to start again. His utterance of my name pulled a shiver down my spine. I thudded over the chair, a bit jittery and disturbed, in fact so disturbed that my wincing over on touching small, ordinary things like the menu-card caused a fair amount of gazing-back from the people, and a pang of concern spreading across his face.

Peter (his name sent down another chill) did not appear too healthy either. His eyes had sunken deep, his hair had grown nastily, and it looked as if he couldn't have cared less to shave, which gave him a grief-stricken, unkempt, scruffy appearance. He looked skinnier than usual, and he must've had been wearing this same jacket for weeks. He had cracked his voice for a reason I couldn't decipher. My eyes fell on his hastily-bandaged index finger, and I fought hard not to ask him how it came about. There were other, smaller details I could've found on him but I went on to stare at the glass table instead.

"I've given up being Spider-Man," he repeated.

He watched me intently waiting for a response, and when I stayed quiet, still digging my eyes into the glass table, he assumed I wanted him to come to the point.

"The city doesn't need me, and moreover I've been losing those powers," he rambled on his own, "but what I –"

"Peter, why're you telling me this?"

He paused, and maybe, pondered over my repetitive cold question. Then he answered, "It's just some people, some very dangerous people have got to know my identity. And so I want you to be careful."

And so he wanted to stay further away from me. And so he wanted that we act like strangers. And so he wanted to say that he still cared for me but it would be better if we only forget each other's faces for good. And so he wanted me to kill that raw bleeding part of my flesh that gave me one heck of pain but at the same time kept me breathing. I exhaled.

"Gwen, are you listening to me?"

"Have you ever, ever listened to me in return?"

"You know that's not what I mean – I just want you to be safe –"

"I'm fed up of all this!" I stood up without warning and banged my wrist over the table, now attracting a notorious amount of attention from the public, "I'm fucking fed up of all this, Peter! You don't know how this feels! You should know that I once used to love you, but right now, I – don't – fucking – want to see your face!"

I immediately regretted whatever I said, but there was no way I could've eaten my words. Peter lowered his head and not for once did he open his mouth to argue, listening with a sort of submission which I didn't think I deserved. I waited for a few seconds as the coffee parlour succumbed to silence and people shamelessly gaped at us; I waited for him to speak, to shout back at me, but he only made that effortlessly pained face he had so perfected at these days. As if he was saying, "If that makes you feel better, then go on."

"I'm leaving," I said, finally, and stormed off towards the glass door. I noticed the rain had become one-step fiercer, but right now I was too angry and embarrassed to retreat and retrieve my umbrella still hooked with the chair I sat on.

I was almost halfway through the door when I could hear his hurtling, stumbling footsteps after me and I only hastened mine. I pulled the overcoat tighter to myself as my fingers went numb with the wet cold. "Gwen, wait up!" he called after me a few good number of times, but I turned a deaf ear and ran onto the edge of the pavement to hail a cab.

A car came up from nowhere and halted right in front of me. "Where to, Miss?" the driver, who some why wore glasses and oxygen mask on his face, stooped out of the window, his lips curled into a strange-looking grin. Although I couldn't see through the tinted glass panes, I was certain there was somebody already seated at the back. I almost decided to refuse but then I knew each moment I waited was shortening the distance between Peter and me.

Before I could put my mind's conflict to rest, the back doors blasted open and two of the black-masked men rushed out from either side. I impulsively broke into a run but one of them grabbed me by waist and the other held back my wildly-flinging arms. My chin banged against the driver's seat as they seized my legs and thrust me further in like a sack.

"Peter!" I screamed and peeked through the back window pane, lifting my head a little before the other man's arm forced around my neck like a strangulating wire. In those few speedy minutes I saw people running about, shrieking and dialing the emergency number, and then I found Peter a long distance back, struggling to squeeze his way past the chaos, shouting out my name. But before he could draw anywhere near to the car, the world spun and my head was smacked against the right window. As blood rolled down from somewhere over my eyebrow, the car gave a growl, then a violent jerk and sped off straight down the roads, ramming into everything that came in its way.

The car accelerated and they raised the glass panes again. The man sitting opposite to me pulled up my legs and began fastening it with nylon ropes, and stuffed me further towards the other guy's torso. I went as hard as I could to rebel, and it only landed me with a slap across my face. The man behind me kept my hands together, his arm tightening around my neck like a steel rim, and while I wriggled and squirmed and screamed as loud as I could, all that came out were heavy choked gasps.

"Stay still or I'll run you through," threatened the man who had been tying up my legs, and pulled out a switchblade that made my insides churn uneasily. He exposed his yellow corroded teeth and a whiff of alcohol breath hit my face. He brandished the knife in front of my wide, terrified eyes and the two men broke into peals of laughter.

My throat dried up. I wondered why they had kidnapped me. Whether I was a random ordinary victim, or a special bate to lure somebody like – like Spider-Man. But Spider-Man didn't exist anymore, did he? What existed was Peter Parker, an unassuming high school nerd these men shouldn't have a business with.

But then I remembered Peter's words I had been listening so half-heartedly to. And how it made my temple throb in fear.

"Do not hurt the girl," commanded the driver as he reeled the steering wheel maniacally, speeding through the convoluted roads towards the part of the city I had never been before. "And let Snow White not know the way back to the castle."

Without warning, a handkerchief pressed over my nose. I struggled hard not to breathe, but soon my windpipe began to burn due to lack of oxygen. As soon as I sniffed in, something surged to my head and with one last flash of Peter's face it went heavier and heavier until everything blacked out.

* * *

Thump.

I sensed the side of my face smear with gravel and dirt as my half-conscious body was thrown out of the car to the ground. With my hands and legs tied up, I didn't dare open my eyes or render the gang of men circling around me a hint about how short-lived the effect of the drug was. From whatever I could see through the gaps, I found myself lying in a vacant, under-construction building.

The two men ripped off their black masks and gazed at me like greedy wild dogs. As much as I could figure out, there was nobody else other than the three that took me into the car, at least not at the very place. The third man stroked my hair. I struggled to stay motionless and not squirm.

"Lock the girl in the cupboard upstairs," he said. It was the voice of the man who drove the car. So far my presumptions were right.

"What if he doesn't show up?" asked one of the two men, while the other went ahead to hoist me up by the elbow. The driver's eyes flared abruptly at me as if he had caught me blinking. I held my breath and waited to see what he would do next, whether he would slap me awake or simply kill his bait, and when he didn't see me move again, he blamed his imagination and turned his back. My mind heaved a sigh of relief.

"He will come," the man said, and each of his words gushed unreasonable confidence.

Who was the man talking about? Was it Peter? It seemed the most likely answer, despite my mind's efforts to reject it. Peter was talking about them. These people were out for his blood. These people were dangerous.

Or maybe they weren't. Maybe they were street muggers trying to be convincing kidnappers. Maybe all they wanted was money. They might have even called up the ransom. And so the man was talking about – I had no idea. But I still hadn't got to the end of it. I still didn't know.

"Master, are you sure the boy is the one?" asked the more impulsive and dumber of the two men, the one that was playing with the knife in front of my eyes, with some sort of suppressed doubt. Midway through the question he realized he was being stupid and his voice reduced to mere mutter.

"I've seen the footage, you blithering clot," the man replied, slightly disgruntled, "I've seen him enter the radioactive room. I've seen the spiders rain over him. And I stole it, so that no one could kill him before I do. He's faking it, my boys, the whole 'hero has fallen' thing because he thinks it's time to keep his powers only to himself."

I didn't know why but I felt as if he added the last bit of information for me to hear. The other two men, seemingly his assistants, exchanged some confused glances, perhaps wondering why their master was repeating something they were so well-acquainted with.

The man's words were loud, clear and distinct. Now I was sure he knew I was awake and eavesdropping their discussion. I noticed he had removed his oxygen mask and sunglasses, and the suave corporate attire game him a businessman-like appearance. Not only businessman-like, the attire gave him a familiar appearance.

I could slightly recall it. I had seen his picture in the newspaper a few days ago. Henry Roberts. I remembered the headline: Dodgy industrialist gone mad.

"But the girl –"

"The girl is gold. I've tracked him for the past three months. And I've seen everything. How Spider-Man swung to the OsCorp Tower to save his ladylove and conspired with the sadistic scientist Connors to kill that policeman Stacy. It was a conspiracy, a cold-blooded murder, and a vicious plan to make the people look up at the vigilante with rose-tinted glasses. And to knock off dead everyone who thinks otherwise," the man continued, "and while Connors rots in the prison, Spider-Man thinks he had gone well beyond his limits and plans to lay low."

The man lit a cigarette. The smoke burned through my nostrils but not as much as the blood boiling in my veins. I felt I was about to burst. What was the man trying to do? Was he egging me on to spring to my feet and retort back at him? Or did he want to see a brow twitch in rage and confirm I was wide awake?

"Funny how the policeman turned out to be the girl's father," he added, "Tragic, tragic."

I gritted my teeth, blood pounding to my head. My fists clenched impulsively. I gravely hoped nobody noticed. To my relief, the man was lost in his own deceptive thoughts, clicking his tongue with the roof of his mouth. "The city needs to get rid of vermin like that. But no, no one is ready to get their hands dirtied!" he raised his voice so suddenly that it almost made me jump, "Now, enough is enough. No more spandex-clad clowns to fool my people. No more destruction. No more science."

I kept my knees touching together and swayed like half-dead with my one elbow hoisted up, lest my legs force me to stand and I punch him on the face. The anger that flared through me was way too hard to control. But I thought I must wait. Once Spider-Man came by, it wouldn't be too hard to end it. A tuxedo-clad maniac with a deformed sense of self-righteousness and two of his armed musclemen couldn't be a big deal for him, could they?

And it hit me like a monstrous gust of wind again. Peter had lost his powers. There was no Spider-Man. Not anymore.

Meanwhile, the man clapped his hands together, "Now, now, fellas, lock the girl in the cupboard upstairs. He should know he has three hours in his hands. If he fails to arrive by then, we'll gut her like a fish and parcel her body to his bloody house. That'll teach him some time management."

* * *

**hey guys, long time no see. I got to tell I've kinda forgotten my other story as i was busy saving my ass from a guy who thought of himself as some charming prince of mine and blabbed rubbish whenever he got a chance not to mention going bwahahaha over his own lame jokes.**

**And if my stories spoiled your mood, feel free to curse in the review box. I'm rhino-skinned, you see.**


	2. Chapter 2

For a small phase, I had lost my senses again. Maybe it was the after-effect of the drug, or my head smacking against different objects so many times. My whole body felt too painful to move, even inside the cramped cupboard. There was a bump on one side of my head, my left eye socket had surely blackened and my right toe felt so excruciatingly painful that I was certain I must've had broken it.

I peeped through the doors of the cupboard. A huge lock was keeping them together, inside a small, empty room that consisted of nothing but a window on either side. The windows didn't have bars or panels, but only a wooden frame surrounding them. As though the whole scenario was set for me to break free and escape.

The exhaustion brought in a drowsy weight over my eyelids as I held them uptight as much as I could, and looked around for something that might help me break the lock, and if possible, the entire doors. After all, it was a construction site. There must be tools lying in shambles – a saw, a drill – anything. There was little space to move inside the cupboard which was filled with all sorts of rubbish. And iron rods.

I could use them to break the lock. But at the same time, these rods would make awfully loud noises which might bring back the men. There was an eerie silence around, as if the building existed somewhere far, far away from the city. Sweat trickled down my forehead. It was getting a bit too suffocating inside. Soon it dawned upon me that if I wanted to escape, the only resort within my reach were those _lousy _iron rods.

Very carefully I picked one up and drove it out through the narrow gap between the doors in a slow, steady manner. Then I banged it on the top of the lock, just where the joint was, and a horribly loud _clunk_ rang out. With the quiet around, the sound must've had carried to a few neighboring buildings, if there existed any. I thought there was some distant noise. I stopped and waited, my heart throbbing in anticipation. Nothing turned up. I carried on hitting, with a gradual increase in force.

About fifteen minutes later, the lock gave way. It struck me as something absurd that the men couldn't catch such blaring recurrent noises. Perhaps they were playing with me, waiting for me to get out before they pounce over. Or perhaps Peter had already handed them to the police and couldn't yet search me out. He ought to know after he heard the noise, though. Either way, I had to take this chance.

I started to tiptoe my way to the door. In the meantime, I checked over the windows, hoping against hope to find a way to jump out of the building. But I turned out to be somewhere way too high, at least twenty floors from the earth. Predictably enough, the windows weren't left unguarded without reason. There was only one person who could jump out of it and still be alive enough to dance his way through the street, but he was nowhere at sight. Before I walked out of the room, I gave a last glance at the cupboard, and sighed.

"Couldn't find Narnia. Let's see if we can find Spider- Man."

* * *

The room led to a passageway that ended up into a frail, half-built staircase. Even as I stepped on it, I felt the debris break away from under my shoes. There was no support or railing or whatsoever, so I had to hold aloft my hands like a ballerina walking on a rope. One misstep and I would be plunging twenty floors down to my death.

As soon as I reached another convoluted passage two floors down, I thought I heard some commotion for the first time, far into the blind turns. I hurried back to the stairs. If the men were somewhere inside, there was a fair chance of my quiet escape. I began jumping two steps at a time. Then I stopped, thinking. What if it was Peter, battling against them?

It was a strange decision to make. I had to check. I had to escape. And I couldn't do both together. Before I could've decided for myself, my feet started retracing the steps they had jumped over, towards the dark, tunnel-like passageway. My mind, it seemed, had its own list of priorities, and Peter apparently fell somewhere at the very first.

The air was damp and cold. The roof leaked water. A drop fell on my shoulder and I shuddered. But I kept on trotting, breathing as slowly as I could so that I didn't make any odd panting sound. The intensity of the noise gradually increased. I seemed to be walking on the correct path. I continued.

Abruptly, I stepped over something. I hurtled back as if repelled by a magnet. I gazed in horror, blood washed out of my face. It was hard to believe. Beside my trembling feet lay one of the man's assistants, spread-eagled on the floor, with his eyes bulged and tongue popping out and a wire wound around his neck. The man, Roberts, _murdered_ one of his own men.

I stifled a scream, shut my eyes tight and at the same time tried hard not to step over the bulky body while it blocked the whole way. How I appeared to have made a desperately foolish decision to keep walking, but the closer I get to the commotion the more it set upon me that Peter was _there_. Nothing could change my mind now.

I was almost there. The door was shut. Before I pulled it ajar, I put my ear to the wooden plank. My fingers pranced over the door and found the knob. The door, defying my expectations, was unlocked.

"She's out there in any of the hundred rooms," Roberts sneered, "but don't worry. I'll kill her right before your eyes and watch you go weak on the knees and beg for your own death," he paused and gave another smirk, "and then, I'll oblige."

Roberts' words were followed by a growl that was unmistakably Peter's. Roberts merely laughed. It sent a small chill down my spine.

"You have me, now let her _go_," Peter's voice shook in rage, but at the same time sounded a bit pleading. No, Peter wasn't doing the right thing. The crazed bloodthirsty man that Roberts was, there was no way he would listen to Peter's plea. Not to mention that it wasn't a worthy exchange; my life wasn't worth _half_ of his.

"_Please let her go_."

"I respectfully refuse."

The man was toying with him. Without another thought, I burst into the room.

* * *

The moment I entered the room, I realized it was a huge, huge mistake on my part.

I stumbled on my feet. It somewhat looked as if I broke into the middle of a stage during a performance, as for a fraction of a second both Peter and Roberts gaped at me. But before any of us could pull ourselves together again, Roberts, standing only a meter apart, leaped at me and grabbed my hair. He fished into his belt and pulled out a gun, sticking it right under my right ear.

I shrieked and flung my arms about but his hold was way too strong to break free. Peter stood cautiously at some distance lest Roberts fired, his eyes frantically searching for something that could help take the gun away. I kept screaming and wriggling, elbowing Roberts in the chest and stamping him on the foot. For a second my eyes met with Peter's and he gave me a tiny shake of head, asking not to rebel too much. Roberts pushed the gun deeper against my neck.

"The girl is going to die, Parker."

He scrambled out of the room, dragging me along. I kept my feet taut on the ground, but that never helped me from being carried away like a rag doll. Peter was momentarily frozen; he perhaps understood the gravity of the situation much more than I did. He appeared to have almost surrendered. He wanted me to sway with the clutches of the man so that I didn't end up with a bullet in my neck. And as for me, well, I wanted him to run away, to somewhere safer. If Peter escaped, the most extreme thing Roberts would be able to do was kill me. And if that saved his life, I wouldn't mind too much.

But honestly, I knew we had _never_ listened to each other all our lives. Neither would we now, when it might all end anytime.

Roberts forced me into a temporary construction elevator. Pieces of wood broke off from the sides as I was thrashed against it. It looked quite unstable, but as soon as the ropes started reeling, I lifted us towards the roof. I stooped below. The height gave me goosebumps. Far down, I could see Peter chasing us. He clung to ropes of the elevator, swung to the window sill and began climbing the wall. I felt a tug of hope in my heart. Maybe, just maybe, Spider-Man was _returning_.

But then he slipped his leg, flipped about and fell flat on the floor. The ropes continued reeling. The distance increased with each passing second.

"Peter!" I yelled.

He looked up. I hadn't thought he would hear me. I saw his jaw stiffen, and a surge of determination burn in his eyes. He got up to his feet, panting, and tried again.

Then abruptly, I lost sight of him as the elevator came to a halt and Roberts yanked me out. I fell on the floor, the side of my face scraping against the concrete. I glanced around. Roberts had apparently dragged me up here because he wanted a wider area to play. The rooftop was broad and open, apart from a huge electronic construction machine placed at the corner. He pulled me, the gun over my head. His arm went round my neck like a snake, squeezing my windpipe. I gagged.

"The boy should know I have five minutes to spare. Five."

He put the gun beneath my ear again. I could smell his smoky cigarette breath. His scruffy chin left a burning sensation on my bare arm. I prayed. I didn't know what I was praying about. The animalistic survival instinct wanted Peter to come and save me but the rest of my mind didn't.

"Four."

Roberts' finger was ready over the trigger. My throat dried up. I closed my eyes as warm tears leaked from the corners. How dying all of a sudden and waiting for death, minute by minute, had a world of difference. I remembered when I was small the thought of having a blood test would chill me to the bone. Dad would assure me, "You never fidget like that when you cut your finger, do you, dear? This'll be the same thing." And I would retort, "Well, at that time my finger didn't know it was to get a gash, did it?" It held true, even for now. The memories were all flashing back. Odd, comical memories.

"Three."

All I could hear was the sound of the blood pumping to my heart and my head. It was getting uglier. The mouth of the gun sensed like burning a hole in my neck. I had rapidly reducing hundred and twenty seconds in my hand before the bullet blasts into my skull and I fall on the ground, lifeless.

"Two."

I bit my lip. I breathed like an asthmatic patient. Adrenalin pumped into my blood. It made me dizzy. I wished if I could throw up. I felt _so_ sick.

But then, for a moment, Roberts released me – only for a moment, after I heard a flurry of hasty, staggering footsteps. The gun went down from my neck to somewhere I couldn't feel it anymore. I blinked open my eyes. Peter had reappeared, standing a few yards ahead facing me, his arms still slightly raised in surrender and his eyes fixed on the man.

"Roberts, listen to me, just let her _go_," he said, "I'm ready to do whatever you say." I shook my head in protest, but neither he nor Roberts paid me any attention.

"What if she calls the _damned_ police?" barked Roberts, grabbing me again.

"She won't. I assure you she won't."

That was not typically Peter. He had never been like _that_ before. He always had an idea or two up his sleeve. But right now, he was frozen, unnerved and unmoving. It wasn't his fault though. He could've found a way out but my presence there was blocking his mind. He knew he couldn't simply lunge at the man. And when he never really went ahead of making the same unfair bargains with Roberts, I thought, albeit nervously, that I would have to be the one to _do_ something.

And soon a glaringly ridiculous plan struck my head. It was silly, but I ought to give it a chance. For all I knew, it _might_ work.

With a long careful thought, I hoisted my foot on my good unbroken toe and with all the strength I had, I heeled Roberts in the crotch. The effect was instant; Roberts was stunned in pain as the gun dropped beside him and he shoved me aside before he crouched, groaning. I knew the drama would last only for a few seconds and wouldn't have even rendered me time to run had I been alone. But I bought more than enough for Peter, who launched a kick as Roberts was flung into the air and his face slammed against the concrete floor. What followed was a spurt of blood from his mouth and from what I could see through the distance, a couple of broken teeth. He didn't move again.

Peter rushed towards me. Before he could say or smile or do anything of such sort, he raced his eyes from my head to toe. I guessed he was having the first square look at me after I was kidnapped. His gaze was burning. I remembered about the bruise over my eyebrow and the blackened eye socket amongst the visible injuries, and the blasting ache in my right toe amongst the worst. And I realized how every scratch on my body made him feel he had gone one step further to break the promise he made with my father.

"That was a cool thing you did," he said anyway. Was it a ghost of a smile on his face? Maybe, maybe.

I wondered whether this would change anything, or _everything_. Whether it would make things normal and free-flowing again. Whether I would still have to slam the door of the locker behind him, frustrated out of the fact how hard he was trying to ignore me. Whether we would still give our heart and soul to avoid being lab-partners. Whether he would ever land on my fire escape again. Whether I would still walk away when I bump into him on the Brooklyn roads. I didn't know.

He examined the wound over my eyebrow like a doctor. "Listen, Gwen, get out of here. If possible, bring back some help. If you can find a phone, call the police. But do not return."

Instead of listening to him, my eyes fell behind his back. Roberts had gathered himself up on his feet and with the gun out of sight, he pulled out a switchblade and charged at Peter.

"Peter, look out!"

Peter turned at him at the right moment, held up Roberts' knife-wielding hand and rammed his fist into Roberts' face. Roberts was caught off-guard, but he remained on his feet as both of them circled each other like hungry wild wolves over a prey.

"Gwen, just go!" Peter shouted again, his eyes never turning away from the growling man while Roberts assailed at him, slashing his knife through the air. It had already ripped through Peter's jacket at a couple of places.

I hesitated. I might be the weaker, less braver one, but I couldn't simply leave him here battling against an armed maniac who was double his build. As the brawl worsened, Peter started to appear on the losing side. He often seemed to be running out of strength and agility, his eyes randomly falling on me for fractions of seconds, and he panicked out of the fact why I hadn't yet disappeared from sight. I wished I could help, as I watched on, helpless. I even thought of moving to a place where they wouldn't be able to see me and I would still be there, but I felt my feet had melted into the concrete like molten wax. I was paralyzed in fear. So I watched on. With horror. With hope. With _desperation_.

Roberts pushed Peter over the corner, and his glare fell on me. I thought I saw his clutch around the hilt of the switchblade grow tighter. Meanwhile, Peter, exhausted and panting and bleeding from the nose, pulled himself together and staggered up to pounce on Roberts. But Roberts, having his eyes dead-set upon me, wrestled him down to the floor again. Peter didn't let go and clasped onto his leg like a mountaineer, and hit him at the crease on the knee as Roberts collapsed with a bellowing, the knife flinging out of his grasp and tumbling down the edge of the roof to plummet twenty floors down to the ground.

Roberts warped his face into an ugly evil grimace, cocked his fist back and landed a blow at Peter's head. The impact was so hard that both of them plowed meters apart from each other, almost knocked unconscious. After a short while, Roberts stumbled up to his feet, Peter didn't. The hysteria inside me increased.

Then I noticed Roberts had fallen right in front of the gun.

My blood froze. Roberts gave a hatred-driven maniacal stare, wiped the blood off his face and aimed the gun at me. Sudden heat rushed down my neck. There was no chance to run or duck the bullet on this wide open rooftop. I had never thought I would accept my painful, painful death so _blatantly_ like a coward. It was ironic how dad used to call me spunky, said I resembled him so much. And how agonizingly spineless I _actually_ was. From the corner of my eye, I could see Peter rising, his eyes frantically running between the gun and my shivering self. I wanted to tell him right then how much I _loved _him still, but it seemed the moment I would turn, I would be gone.

There was the _click_. Roberts had unlocked the gun. Peter broke into a run towards him but it was unlikely he would ever reach in time.

"GWEN, NO! RUN!"

Peter dived right at him from the side, flailing his arms forth, his hands outstretched to hold onto the gun and divert it skywards, but before I thought anything of such sort actually happened Roberts had pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot rattled inside my body and pulsated through my feet to the ground. I gasped. My eyes welled up.

The time stood still. The air felt hollow. I remained as immobile as I was, wide-eyed, the breath sucked out of my lungs. Roberts was standing there on, his finger still resting over the trigger and a small satisfied smile etched across his face. He was looking at Peter, and Peter – he gazed at Roberts in return, his mouth half-opened and eyes wider than mine. His hands, once outstretched, were curled around the mouth of the smoking gun. The mouth of the gun that was pointing at the dark rapidly-expanding spot on his shirt.

"No."

It didn't happen. It couldn't happen. Roberts had shot at me. Peter couldn't have come in between. He just couldn't.

Roberts shot him in the chest again. His whole body shuddered as it took the bullet, and the impact pushed him a few steps back.

"_Peter!_"

I hurtled in the direction to catch Peter before he thudded to the ground. He stayed on his feet even as I reached him, weakly throwing his arms around me, trying to shield me in every possible way he could from Roberts. But then his knees buckled in pain, and slid down to the floor, crumpling over.

One moment I was looking down at Peter writhing on the ground and the next I was staring straight at the approaching Roberts, who put the gun right between my eyes. I thought he positioned the gun and gave me a frightening smirk.

"Time's up."

A few seconds more. Only a few seconds more. My heart was thumping so hard that it must have had broken a rib or two. A sort of delirium was ripping through my insides. The metal touching my forehead was icy cold. I shut my eyes again. Random images flashed before them. How Peter was shot through the chest, how blood spurted out, how he had earlier examined the wound over my eyebrow. And how that sent a warm rush of blood through my body.

Only a few seconds more before I fell on the ground beside him.

But that moment, something noisy, animalistic struck me inside. Something that told me I couldn't, _couldn't_ afford to be scared anymore. That Peter had done all he could've had to save my unworthy life, and I didn't want to fail him this time. That I didn't want to go up there and tell dad how wrong he was about me. That if my fragile self couldn't be a hero, it must at least try being a _survivor_. In that moment, the noisy, animalistic, selfish thought rippled through my body like electricity.

I tried to extract every ounce of energy I had and yelled. It caught Roberts with sudden slight surprise and his grip over the gun lost some confidence. Before he could make up his mind again and shoot at me, I grabbed his gun-wielding hand and twisted it so as to get the gun dropped on the floor. Roberts didn't lose his clutch and out of desperation he pulled the trigger, but the gun fired into the electronic construction machine instead. As much as I could know, the bullet clogged into the engine while I continued wrestling with Roberts, and what followed was a mighty explosion. Both Roberts and I were thrown into the air, and while I landed near the stairs, Roberts tripped over the edge of the roof and disappeared into the darkness.

I waited. Dead or not, he didn't climb back again. I won. _We won_.

* * *

I ran towards Peter, pulled him up from the ground and held him in my arms. He was quivering, with occasional seizures, his breathing forced and ragged. His whole shirt was drenched in blood. I pushed the hair away from his face with a trembling hand. He was looking at me with sleepy, half-closed eyes, mouthing the word "go", but it was lesser than a whisper, only a whiff of breath.

"I'm not going anywhere!" I cried, "The faster you get it, the better it will be." I held him tighter to myself, tried to create some pressure over the blood pumping out of his wounds and gazed at how all my efforts were failing…

All I wanted to give him was a big, bad scolding. Why, Peter? Why did you do it? Couldn't have you for once put your _lousy_ wretched virtues aside? It was almost time that I was dead. It was fair time to wipe off my existence, to help you move on without worrying about _promises_. Then why did you so stupidly turn the gun on yourself? Why did you take _those _bullets for me? Where do I take you now? Where the _hell_ am I going to find a _freakin'_ hospital in this barren wasteland?

But no more. You wouldn't be able to hold your own against me, Peter Parker. No matter what, I would not let _anything_ happen to you. Not this time.

"Hang on, hang on," more appropriate words rumbled out of my mouth in dry uneven gasps, "Just hang on, Peter, somebody will come to help – it'll be okay –"

I noticed a bullet wound close to his heart and immediately realized how false my assurances were. Perhaps he did too – as he gave me a tired, faint smile. Like it didn't matter what happened next. Like it didn't matter if he –if he – drop it, anyway, I couldn't put my mind to think that far. Somebody would have to come, I thought. Somebody would have to come and help us. I waited for that miracle to occur.

A few slow moments later, he lifted his hand and affectionately touched my cheek; I forced a smile out of myself, my mind reeling backwards when hours ago I had flinched back when he had reached out to do the same.

"Gwen…"

I pursed my lips to push back a sob, and let out, "Hmm…"

"I love you."

His voice was weak, but so honest and full of child-like innocence that it caught me off-guard and bawling uncontrollably. Not to mention this was the first time he had _said_ it. How my face blanked out with the thought and the realization hit me like a blow in the gut. I had waited for these words since_ so_ long. Only months ago it was a thrill to imagine how it would all go, my mind would run in circles thinking how I would react, what I would say, whether I would just grab and kiss him. Only that I didn't know back then this small schoolgirl _crush_ would turn my life upside-down.

Things were so different now. There was no thrill, just a wrenching in the heart as I watched him turn and shiver, a tumult of self-hatred oozing out of the fact that he was here, dying, only and only because of me. Only if I hadn't rushed out of the coffee shop leaving him behind, only if I hadn't burst into the room, only if I had for once listened to him…

I noticed that the awkwardness, the discomfort was all gone. Suddenly we wanted to talk. We wanted to talk about a million things. I wanted to tell him my new lab partner was too lazy for his own good. I wanted to tell him last night when I was sitting alone, idling, I discovered a trivial anomaly in Kirchhoff's law. I wanted to tell him I didn't mean a single word I said to him at the coffee shop. I wanted to tell him I _missed_ him so much these days. But neither of us could speak. While his breathing drew blood, I simply couldn't breathe.

The more I watched him, the more panic-stricken I became. It was so odd that he had to be the one to clasp my hand and calm me down instead. I tried to lift him but, he just wouldn't move. He wanted hours to pass by like this, staring at me as though I was some sort of an angel and not the dreadful cause of his condition.

I saw him whispering something again. I bit my lip, swallowing down the recurrent hiccups. I cupped his face and brought mine so close that our foreheads almost touched. It sort of looked as if I was trying to give him some artificial respiration. The sounds that came out of Peter's mouth were totally incoherent and I couldn't catch them, no matter how hard I tried.

"Gwen – I … I – en – you're…"

I wanted to answer him back on whatever he might've had said, but then his fingers slowly let go of mine and his hand slid down my lap. My eyes searched him; his ribs and shoulders didn't heave up and down with every struggled breath, his head hung backwards and his body felt like a limp dummy over my arms. His eyes, half-closed as they were, gazed at the sky.

He was gone.

I didn't know how many seconds or minutes or hours or days passed by with me holding him like that, close to my chest, as if I was trying so hard to hug him but he wouldn't wrap his arms around me, wouldn't hug me back at any cost. He still had that sleepy gaze in his eyes, and for a moment I _actually_ thought he would blink, unable to hold it anymore, crack up laughing and say, "Fooled you right!" and I would cry about how gravely he had scared me, hit at him but finally it would put a smile upon my face.

Then I rested him on the ground. I rubbed off my tears and tore a piece of cloth from my skirt. Delicately, I wiped his face clean of the dirt and blood. Closed his eyes. Put his hands together on his chest. Despite being soaked in blood, he appeared _so_ tranquil.

I didn't need to worry. He was only sleeping.

* * *

**Brace yourselves for a grittier, darker Gwen from the next chapters.**

**And btw, please leave me a review for I might end up winding it up here out of disinterest. Please, please, please! **


	3. Chapter 3

Everything happened in blurs. I saw the team of paramedics rushing in and out through the doorway. The siren of the ambulance still rang in my ears. Near me, I could see Aunt May marching to and fro, her wrinkled face white with sheer naked terror, as we both waited for the news we dreaded the most. I didn't know when she came by. Maybe I did call her, and told her everything in some sort of bland roughness I should've had controlled upon, but right then I felt too messed up to try and remember whatever that happened in the past few hours.

Finally, she let go of her impatient marching and thumped on one of the randomly-arranged chairs. From the corner of my eye, I could see her knees trembling out of urgency just like mine as she dug her fingernails into her face and waited. None of us talked. It was almost 7:00 pm in the evening, and the hospital had its usual rush, and while the people passed us by, they gawped at my bloodied clothes and dishevelled appearance as if I were some sort of a figure dawned straight out of a horror picture.

In another half an hour, more people arrived. I sensed my mother's hand on my shoulder, but I made sure not to look up or I might simply burst into tears.

The paramedics returned. Aunt May stood up on impulse; I didn't. I tried not to hear what they said. I wanted to figure things out later, somehow by looking at others' reactions. Like a child, I closed my eyes and clogged my ears with my fingers. However, I still caught words and phrases like 'miracle' and 'enormous vitality' and 'will survive'. Right then, nothing could make enough sense to me.

"Gwen, let's go home," my mother nudged me. I looked at her this time; her face that was shining with grim sweat somewhat looked a slight bit relieved, in fact she seemed more worried about the person she was talking to than the one lying in that hospital bed inside. "No," I murmured defiantly, and stood up, my left toe blasting with ache. I peeked through the glass barrier; Peter lay on the bed, motionless, his hair ruffled over his forehead and face half-covered with an oxygen mask. And with loads of ticking-blinking devices and equipments beside him – equipments that could keep the dark truth from surfacing for _at least_ a week.

"Let's go home, Gwen, there's nothing you can do right here," my mother said again. "No," I thought I had said, but soon enough found myself trailing behind her in the way out, my eyes fixed on the white hospital floor. I sensed the odd smell of medicine leave my nostrils giving way to the rustic roadside air as she boarded a taxi home.

The vibrations of the engine under my seat only scratched into those fresh mental scars and sent chills after chills up my spine as I sat back with a wide-eyed, demented look on my face. After sometime, I drew away from the window where the city frames reeled past, and gazed at the face beside me. My mother's face, pale and freckled, was pumped up with anxiety as the uneven strands of greying hair danced over her forehead with the gusts of wind. Her eyes had that pitiful, understanding look, unlike many curious, suspicious others. She, of all people, was one of those who didn't want to know what had happened.

"Gwen, it's okay, dear."

She put a compassionate hand on my shoulder. I shrugged for a while, then let it be, and went back to gape at the city frames zooming past me. Thought of the times when I was little and somebody would break my toy, and would fall on my face into her lap crying to my heart's content. She, of all people, had always been one of those who didn't want to know what had happened.

* * *

As soon as I entered the apartment, I saw Captain Finney waiting on the couch inside, flipping over his pocket diary absent-mindedly. He was a big, paunchy presence and my dad's colleague, and had visited us several times before, but right then he appeared to be on duty, dressed in blue with that familiar badge shining over his left breast pocket. His gaze lingered at the blood on my clothes as I limped my way before he turned his rough square face at his pocket diary again.

"Can't the questioning be done later?" mom asked, rather demanded, in an irritable voice.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Stacy, but its better if done when still fresh."

Both of them turned at me for some sort of consent, but I didn't glance up, my feet molten and frozen into the floor and eyes dug into that weird polyester carpet. A minute of silence later, my mother raised her arms up in exasperation and marched into one of the bedrooms.

The Captain pulled out a pen and readied to scribble into that pocket diary. He stared at me intently, his feral grey eyes trying to search through my poker-face, and then decided to break into a small sympathetic smile, and said, "I don't want to do this either, Gwen. It's going to be very short. Now sit here," he shifted to one corner of the couch, "and tell me – what did the culprit look like?"

"It – it was," I stuttered, "it was Henry Roberts."

"Excuse me?" he didn't seem to have heard correctly.

"Henry Ro-Roberts."

"Henry Roberts, the industrialist?"

I nodded nervously, "Yes."

"But Gwen, are you sure?"

I nodded again, with a slight increase in confidence, "Most likely."

The Captain paused for a moment, brushing his index finger against his chin as if in deep confusion, "The attempted homicide happened at approximately 4:30 pm. But wasn't Henry Roberts present at the Glasgow conference at the same time? The Glasgow conference? It's all over in the papers..."

I gaped at the policeman's reasonably baffled face. "But that – can't possibly be –"

"Moreover," said Finney, "we couldn't find any fingerprint other than Mr. Parker and yours on the gun, though not necessarily on the trigger..."

It was odd for the Captain to add such a weird and misleading conclusion to the thread, even though he spoke in a throwaway, unimportant tone. "Do you want to say that," I burst out, shaking and outraged, "I tried to kill Peter?" Finney's suspicious, intent eyes soon melted into apologetic ones. "Not at all, Gwen," and in a weak attempt to cover it up, he continued, "The attacker could've easily worn gloves. Was he? Do you remember?"

My mind reeled backwards. I had never looked closely enough at his hands. "I'm not sure," I replied in a low voice. I wanted to walk out of the room immediately. My eyes were red and raw. My head weighed a ton. My blood stained clothes made my insides churn every time I looked at them. I ought to change them. I ought to sleep. I ought to bury my face into a pillow and _cry_, and not answer questions and face meaningless allegations. I was so _sick_ of it all.

"What was he wearing?"

"A tuxedo. And sunglasses and oxygen mask when he kidnapped me."

"And he didn't even ask for ransom. Surely, if it was Henry Roberts, he wouldn't have needed money so desperately that he would kidnap a kid. And then?"

"I don't know, they took me to a half-constructed building and locked me into a cupboard. When I was able to get out of it, I could hear voices coming from upstairs. I dashed for it. Then I found them – Peter and Roberts. Roberts dragged me to the roof and a brawl ensued where he tried to shoot me, but Peter – he – he turned the gun on himself –" I stopped abruptly, as the flashes flew past my mind. How it all happened. How the sound of the gunshot rattled through the body. How the machine exploded. How Peter fell to the ground. How he told me he _loved_ me. How he stopped blinking. How out of inane anguish and desperation I punched into his chest and his body convulsed and he regained his lost ragged breaths again. How the almost-stopped, slow thudding of his heart gained momentum. How that small hope reignited in the times of hopelessness.

"Calm down, Gwen, and tell me," said the officer, "why did you run for the noisy spot when you had the safe way out?"

"Because I had overheard them talking about how they were _so_ sure that Peter would come and I was simply bait. _He_ was the ransom."

"So when you heard the noise –"

"When I heard the noise, I thought _that_ must be Peter," I uttered, drastically running out of patience with each syllable.

"It's a weird thing, Gwen," said Finney, "why would Henry Roberts want Mr. Parker?"

"Because Roberts had a personal vendetta. He wanted to _kill_ Peter. Not to mention I read in the newspaper only yesterday that Roberts had gone mad."

"Oh dear, Gwen," Finney sighed, scratching his scruffy chin with his finger again, "you didn't read the article. It was just a fancy title given to mention the fact that he sold half his shares on impulse."

"You don't believe me, then?" I asked scathingly.

"Never said so. It's only that a high-profile industrialist who appeared to be at two places in the same time wanting to kill an ordinary teenage boy is outright strange. I simply cannot connect the points."

Even though I thought I had quite an idea about what the missing piece was, I knew better than to blurt it aloud. Cpt. Finney looked lost in his own thoughts, his feral grey eyes stuck at the scribbled sheet of the pocket diary, as if he was expecting some abrupt clue to leap out of the page. "I'm not lying, officer," I told him again, "Neither am I imagining things."

Finney looked at me for a whole minute, maybe searching through my expressions, trying to reminisce all the cases he had solved, all the memories of the criminals he had captured so as to make a clue pop up nowhere. I maintained a stony, impenetrable expression, not even bothering for a twitch of brow, or even a lip bite. Though I was certain I didn't look like a thief, I could never make out whether I appeared sane enough to him or seemed like one of those drug-addicted or traumatized witnesses whom nobody could bank upon.

"I know, Gwen," he sighed. One moment I thought he had believed me and the next moment I thought he hadn't. "I guess then," he spoke as he rose up to leave and lightly patted my head, "we'll have to wait for Mr. Parker to regain his consciousness. In the meantime, Miss Stacy, I'll advise you to get some sleep and make sure you're _not_ hallucinating."

* * *

For the next four weeks, everybody I had known was pestering me big time.

Captain Finney visited me a number of times, demanding to know the same thing again and again, which ranged from detailed descriptions of the car I was hurled into to the cupboard I was locked in, and in the end returning with the similarly baffled face that he did three conversations ago. At school, things were even worse; everybody wanted me to tell the incident as though it was fiction, and repeat it countless times, so much so, that out of frustration I locked myself up in my room.

I marched to the bathroom, slammed the door shut and fell tiredly against it. The room was shaky and spinning. I ignored my head. Then with an impulse of a maniac I jumped on the shower and turned it on. As the water splashed onto my face, I forgot about it soaking my clothes for this one moment of icy blind static.

It had been over a month and the chair behind me was still unoccupied, I thought even as it began knotting my insides together. I had _no_ news of him. And only last day I was hounded about in the gym by my own classmates, and before I could even figure their intentions, whether they had come like those bunches of people every other day to know the 'story', or offer the typical condolences that frustrated the _hell_ out of me, I underwent some severe outburst. I had screamed a lot of things I didn't remember but back then had made them cringe and back off. If that wasn't all, only the day before yesterday I eavesdropped Finney speaking to my mother about taking me to one of those armchair psychologists for I was too 'traumatised' to remember the attacker's face and was finding misleading resemblances with a man who had been an ocean away from the spot of crime.

I jolted back into the insipid reality that was the four-walled bathroom, and turned off the shower as it became difficult to breathe through the cascade of water. I gazed into the mirror instead. A pair of startled grey eyes stared back at me. The blonde side-swept fringes and the pale chin dripped water. The lips looked as if often bit upon. The reflection seemed to me like that of a stranger.

People wanted answers. They wanted explanations. All I had were lies. And excuses.

That was it. These lies and excuses had been consuming me up. I felt I had been drastically losing my sanity. And I needed to talk it out with somebody soon before I go completely out of control.

* * *

A less than a month had passed when I got the chance to visit the hospital again. That smell of medicine rushed into my nostrils before I could even put a foot on the white hospital tiles. It made me oddly reminiscent. I peeked through the glass barrier. Peter appeared to be sleeping on the bed, the colour now returning to his face that was ashen and corpse-like last time I saw him. The oxygen mask was removed, though he still had those thin tubes attached to his wrists. He looked skinnier than usual in those baggy hospital clothes. His hair had grown further in this little while, giving him the shaggiest appearance I had ever seen.

I gently pushed open the door, tiptoed in and sat on the stool beside the bed. My eyes slightly welled up and that guilty lump was back in my throat as I watched him. Carefully, I took his hand in mine. I had been selfish. And then I had been a coward. It had been _my_ fault, eventually, and the whole thing about guilt became such an unbearable, gross burden that I couldn't get myself to see him for one _long_ month. Clearing up my lumpy throat, however, I said in a firm, authoritative voice, "There's no use pretending, Peter. I know you're wide awake."

To be honest, it was only a wild guess. But as soon as I said it, a soft mischievous smile erupted at the corner of Peter's lips and he blinked wearily. His eyes fell on me and I looked away, fixing my gaze at the New York skyline.

"Took you so many days," he talked in a weak sleepy voice, "What happened, did you get some Brad Pitt lookalike?"

I glared at him, "Exactly," I snapped, "I feel like I'm on a vacation at Miami these days."

He looked at me sheepishly, paused for a while and said, "All right, no kidding. Tell me, how are you?"

I felt outrageous this time. Did he even _understand_ the question he was asking me? Did he remember I saw him get shot twice and slump to the ground? Did he remember that he had stopped responding before I could even fetch the ambulance? I gave him another glaring, murderous gaze. "How am I?" I must've had sounded hysterical, "How _am_ I? Do you really want to know how I am?" I almost shouted at him, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes, "Well, for starters, I thought you were dead, Peter. I actually thought you were dead! And now, the police are troubling me day and night, the man who had almost killed you is on loose and nobody is _fucking_ ready to believe my words! The only person who'd have believed me is my _dead_ father! My – dead – father –" I broke down into tears before I could finish.

He squeezed my hand in an embarrassed apology. "I'm sorry, Gwen, I – I didn't – I didn't mean it like that – I didn't mean to be rude –"

"I know," I sniffed.

I kept on shifting my gaze from the white sheets to the sour cream walls to the blinds of the window and after an uncomfortable silence ensued and my sobs slowly died down, he said in a rather unsure voice, "And if you want, you can wipe your nose on my sleeve," he raised his left arm mechanically. I chuckled through the tears, despite my desperate efforts not to. "You boys 're gross," I said.

I fell into deep thought for a while. I thought we had a lot to talk about. But it seemed it was all about silences – different kinds of it. Right then, it was the burning, uncomfortably awkward one. Out of the blue, I asked, "Is it painful?" It was a ridiculous question on my part, though; getting through gun wounds was _indeed_ awfully painful and no matter what, Peter was never going to accept that in front of me.

"What, lying here all day?" he laughed, "not really. I've impressed the docs though. They say I've been healing abnormally fast."

"You better do," I said threateningly, "Did the officers interrogate you yet?"

"I've managed to dodge them pretty well till now."

"By pretending to be asleep."

"Exactly, detective," he smirked, "anyway, what's happened now? Why don't they believe you?"

"Because," I explained, tearing a petal off one of the flowers kept on the bedside table, "the police found no trace of the man at the spot. Moreover he was sighted at the same time in Europe. And he's got money enough to seal lips."

Peter furrowed his eyebrows together, the smirk gone from his face, "That's indeed mysterious. But in the same breath, I hope he's not caught. That man knows my secret."

"But it's your past, isn't it?"

"Not for the policemen. And not for me either."

"What do you mean?"

"Gwen, I feel as if my powers have _returned_," he said excitedly, "I feel as strong as before, maybe even stronger. Perhaps that's what helped me survive," he stared at the front wall with a trance-like expression, "I guess I'll be able to sort things out with Roberts myself once I'm out but I feel like I'm chained to this hospital bed and Aunt May keeps an eye on me 24X7."

"And rightfully so. By the way, Peter, that reminds me there's something important I wanted to tell you."

It was the hardest thing to do – to make myself say it. I tangled my fingers together and looked at my palms as if I had scribbled a speech up there, while he waited earnestly and eagerly for me to speak, raising his eyebrows with each passing second such that they almost disappeared into that shaggy mess of hair. He looked slightly puzzled, trying to figure things out from my expressions and gestures if he could as it took me few long minutes to gather the right syllables and the right words.

"You were right," I said ultimately, gazing at my lap and my fidgeting fingers, "We shouldn't be together anymore."

I thought I had made the right decision; I should _indeed_ keep away. The more I would stay near to him, the more I would fall in trouble and the more he would risk his _own_ life to save mine. I had almost lost him once; I couldn't afford the same thing to happen again.

In spite of myself, I looked up awkwardly, right into the hurt brown eyes, and then back at the chequered lining of my grey skirt. The room filled with a hollow silence once again. I wished he had shouted at me the same way I had at the cafe before. It must've had sounded abrupt and harsh, even though I couldn't quite remember it now that my ears were suddenly flooded with imaginary ringing sensations. I glanced at Peter from the corner of my eye. He had composed his face much faster than I had thought he would.

"I hope that means," he spoke in a barely audible whisper, "we're _still friends_."

I nodded. I couldn't think of anything else to do. I felt that child-like expectation in his voice – it was his way of saying he didn't quite accept the idea of us never meeting again, whatever the consequences might be. And I didn't want to argue over this – deep down I had the same tug in my heart. None of us spoke for some time, and while I spent time rubbing my fingernails together, deliberately avoiding a glance at his face, staring at the white glossy tiles and plucking the petals of the shrunken petunias of the flower vase, he just lay gazing at the ceiling as though it was a vast open night sky. In the end, I pushed back my chair and stood to leave. I could feel his stares burning a hole into my back, but I focused on my forced walking, one step at a time, trying to cross the glass barrier before my feet could change their mind and retrace.

"Will you visit again?"

I was halfway through. I paused. I thought I had no answer.

"If you want me to," I said after a while. The hospital went abruptly and hauntingly quiet; I couldn't hear the creaking of wheelchairs and crisp footsteps of the nurses. Peter screwed his eyebrows, pushed his feet against the bed and tried to rise a little. The effort that went into it burnt my heart and chewed up my insides. I wondered when I would see him back on his feet again.

"Don't leave," he said in _that _innocent, child-like tone, behind me.

I turned at the door. My neck went rigid. The more I would turn back, the more difficult it would become to leave. I was frozen for a moment. "Go, just go. Don't look back. Just leave," I muttered to myself. I churned out a lame, selfish-sounding excuse, "I – I've got homework." I wanted it to sound like a lie, as if I couldn't care less. And it did.

"Oh. Okay."

"Okay."

The walk to the door was long, and my slow trotting made it seem like that of miles. My ears tried to search for those creaking wheelchairs or the crisp footsteps of the nurses so that I could ignore my own long sighs. It wasn't a surprise that my mind flew back to the rain-washed day I stood at his doorstep being the distraught stubborn Daddy's little girl I was, shut out by the world and the person I loved the most, all so abruptly.

That day, I had ogled disbelievingly at him, took my umbrella and walked away. Only two months later, I bumped into Peter again, screamed aloud, and walked away. It seemed nothing had changed in between. Today, after mere another month, all I was trying to do was to _walk away_ – more understandingly this time – all set to knock off the circumstances and situations no matter how hard they try and make our worlds collide. I took in a deep breath and with a reluctant hand, pulled the door open. In spite of myself, I decided to tell him about the final thing that had been nagging me since I had stepped into this room. I wheeled a slight angle towards him, and said, "And Peter," I paused as I sensed him raise his head, the corners of my lips turning into a mild smile, "once you're discharged, please get a haircut."

* * *

**OHHHKAY I changed the story. Peter survives.**


End file.
